The
Masa Experience

The
Best Counter Dining in the U.S.?

by John Mariani

Raw
counter culturePhoto by Kenneth Chen

What's
the price of glory? In the case of Masa, start with $300 per person,
plus beverages, an automatic 18% service charge and NYC sales tax.
So figure about $400 or more. If you have a problem spending that
much money on a meal, I feel your pain. It is a helluva lot of dough
to spend in an evening for the delectation of one's palate. Yes,
I know that courtside Knicks tix can cost $1,000 a seat (if you
find a charitable scalper), and there are people who giddily spend
$600 for a pair of shoes they may wear once in a season. So, if
money's no object in such matters, I absolutely, positively urge
you to enjoy yourself at Masa, which is quite possibly the best
Japanese restaurant in America.

If,
however, you are offended by such extravagance, Masa is testament
to just how profligate dining out has become in some quarters, in
this case the new Time Warner Center at Columbus Circle. Its fourth
floor is home to Thomas Keller's Per
Se, where you can easily spend $300 per person for dinner, and V
Steakhouse, where a porterhouse goes for $62. Having therefore
given you fair warning, let me proceed to tell you about the Masa
experience.

Since
a mighty reputation precedes Masayoshi Takayama as the former sushi
master at Beverly Hills' Ginza Sushi-Ko (where meal tickets were
only slightly less expensive than in NYC), everyone expected that
obtaining one of the ten seats at the counter here would be tantamount
to getting a front row seat for a new Broadway hit the night after
the rave reviews came in. Yet when I visited mid-week, I found Masa
nearly empty at 7:30 p.m. There were only four people at the sushi
counter (one was Rocky H. Aoki, founder the Benihana restaurant chain), and by 9 p.m. there were just my wife and I and
one other couple, eating in near silence. (There are two small,
dull rooms also available for private dining; one was taken that
evening.) A lone straggler—who happens to be one of Miami's
finest chefs—wandered in and was immediately seated without
a reservation. Later, upon presentation of the bill, she went into
serious sticker shock.

The
nicely lighted counter space is very simple and quite refined, though
not much different looking than many other sushi counters around
town. The smooth, beautiful counter is made from Masa's favorite
wood, hinoki, and all wood, stone and bamboo design elements, selected
by architect Richard Bloch, have been specially brought in from
Japan—as is most of the seafood at Masa.

Tokyo's
Tsukiji fish market

This
importation, in fact, is what Masa contends sets his food apart
from the rest: The ingredients are exceedingly expensive. (Thank
the gods for FedEx and DHL, but at these prices I trust the fish
flew first class.) A smiling, congenial Masa stands before you,
and he has sworn he will always be there—unlike his globetrotting
colleague Nobu Matsuhisa, who flits among his dozen or so namesake
restaurants while also doing celebrity cooking stints. "It
is the respect I owe my customers," he told me. Indeed, this
makes Masa even more special: The man is all yours for the evening
and you are all his.

His
English is halting but earnest (other staff members, who barely
earn that 18% service charge by doing little more than bringing
and removing your plates, help with the translation of fish species).
You are poured a little sake from a green bottle into a cypress
cup, at which point I began to feel a bit like Alice in Wonderland,
for, as a Japanese magazine explains, "The cup, which holds
only 60 milliliters, is so tiny that it will spill its contents
unless extreme care is used when filling it. The bottle has been
meticulously designed and crafted so the precise contour of the
neck controls the amount that can be poured, and the cup will not
overflow. The sake cup itself was carved to less than 1 millimeter
in thickness with the craftsman's most delicate touch. When lips
meet the edge of the cup, the subtle aroma of cypress drifts into
the nostrils, enthralling the sipper with simultaneous pleasures
of touch, taste, and scent." Right!

Over
the course of the next two or more hours, Masa and his assistants
prepared an array of sushi and other dishes of sheer delight. Of
more than 20 items, not one was less than stellar, beginning with
a little dish of shredded, pickled seafood. Next came toro (tuna
belly) tartare with a touch of caviar and toast; the fish's pristine
quality and high fat content drove me to crave another bite. But
Masa had other ideas: Sea bass with sprouts and aromatic leaves,
vinegar and salt (which sushi chefs call naminohana ("flower of the waves"), a dish that left a bitter-salty
tingling sensation on the tongue, which lingered for minutes before
the next course: a very meaty greenling cod, called ainame in Japanese,
with shishito pepper.

A
little bowl of foie gras and a sharp-toothed eel called hamo came in a delicate soy broth, a signature Masa shabu-shabu-style
dish that deserves its fame—the velvety foie gras barely melting
in the broth, the fish adding briny nuance to the fatted morsel.
To clear the palate another broth was presented, this one made with
dry seaweed. Then an array of fabulous sushi of a quality I have
rarely tasted in this country. There was pale pink, fatty toro, shimaji (striped jack), tai (sea bream), aoyagi (clam), ebi (shrimp), red clam, hotategai (scallops),
and kohada (the herring-like gizzard shad), all of which
change on the menu by season. As Masa explains, "I want to
know what the food is eating," meaning that whatever the fish
consume will affect their flavor when served raw.

We
were far from finished: Grilled shiitakes came next, followed by
a sweet shrimp just barely cooked and still translucent, then grilled saba (mackerel), and shako (crayfish), Santa Barbara
sea urchin, cooked tuna, and, a little surprisingly, some make sushi
rolls. One would think by then we would be either bloated or growing
gills, but in fact, we felt completely satisfied, sated but not
uncomfortable, which is a great credit to Masa's sense of balance.
By the same token, I don't think I would have wanted a single morsel
more, so I left Masa believing I'd had a perfect meal.

If
perfection comes at so high a price (with wine, our bill came to
$900), it is an experience I will treasure. I just don't have the
treasure to enjoy a meal at Masa very often.

Masa, 10 Columbus Circle, 4th Floor, 212-823-9800

John
Mariani is well known for his frank and poignant
writing in Esquire, Wine Spectator, Diversion and the Harper Collection.
He is author of The Encyclopedia of American Food
& Drink, The Dictionary of Italian Food and Drink and co-author, with his wife, of the Italian-American
Cookbook.